I Thought It Would Be Different: Ratter

Here I come with a new series of reviews called “I thought it would be different”. The title came from a simple experience I have as often as you do, I’m sure: I read all about a film, know all the reviews by heart and set it such high or low expectations (depending on what I’ve been reading and where this information was coming from) that the film is almost doomed to surprise me (or not if it means an Adam Sandler movie). Usually this happens after film festivals I fail to attend. The audience can’t stop talking about a certain film and I get all excited about it only to discover yet another pretentious borefest, or in other cases, I grow all defensive like those who hate Harry Potter while never have read it themselves and when I finally get to see it (years after its official release, on the small screen of my computer which can never give anything justice) I curse myself for hating those who loved it. This happened for example with the Edge of Tomorrow – how long did I wait to see it? I don’t even know…Why? Because it never looked appealing – the title was awful, the trailer was ok. But one night I had nothing better to watch, so I put it on and hell, one of the best films of the genre (although like with all good films and books, the genre is played with). My God, how many letters did I send to Prince Charles Cinema asking them for re-release.

So yes, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about when I talk about films that I thought would be different.

So here comes the actual review.

Maybe before I start I should say that I’m afraid of darkness. I spent million years being very embarrassed about it, but now I don’t really give a crap of what all of you ten people reading this blog will think about it – I am afraid of darkness.

The fear of darkness has advantages of low tolerance for alcohol. Because of it, I tend to get freaked out by the mere mention of the words Home Alone and one of the scariest films I’ve seen in my whole life is E.T. because of the scene in which Elliot goes to the barn to check something (get pizza?) and alone, finds there a holly-shit-it’s-an-alien. I’m not going to even get into details of how many years I spent trying to stop freaking out about aliens abducting me in my sleep and how much it took me to finally turn off the light to go to sleep, even if I can only do it if somebody else is sleeping right next to me.

So Ratter seemed like a perfect film for me.

Until it tried to scare me.

There’s not much going on. There’s a girl who moves into the fanciest apartment in New York (fucking students, man) and spends her time doing not much, like we all, playing wii and watching TV. Sometimes she goes out and meets her friend who must be the most indifferent friend in the whole world. But of course, nothing is as simple as playing wii and watching TV – our heroine moved out partly to escape her parents’ overprotective nest (and to move to another nest, also sponsored by her parents) and partly to get rid off a drama queen ex, who calls her non stop crying over their finished relationship. So, of course when shit starts to go down we know it cannot be him causing all the trouble. He’s too obvious of a choice. But who else is there?

Well, she meets this guy she has no chemistry with and yet, they start going out and two weeks into their relationship he gets her a kitten as an apology for sending her porn accidentally (he didn’t but it freaked her out so he still apologised I guess…). First of all, as much as I love cats – who the fuck gives a cat surprise for anyone you know for such a short time? Hell, I wouldn’t even give a surprise pet for someone I know my whole life if they never mentioned wanting one before. Secondly, why is this character even there if not to make us think that oooooh…he must be doing stuff. But of course, it’s not him and anyway, what is this stuff I’m talking about?

Well, it’s hard to say. I should have mentioned much earlier- Ratter has a very special editing…issue…

Our heroine is stalked by a man, but we don’t know anything about him. The only way we could tell that somebody is stalking her is because all of her gadgets and technology around her is watching her. Her X Box camera is always on and so is her computer and sometimes we see her being zoomed in, so we presume there must be a person controlling it. But the main medium of stalking is her phone and damn, this phone has an eye of a spy I tell you.

The film’s editing looks messy to make it more realistic and fails amazingly at doing it right. Let’s play a game called Where Is the Phone?

Here are few shots from the film. Imagine, where the phone would have to be in order to film these:
ratter1

Who the hell puts the camera on the level of their faces? It’s like the camera is the third person in the room. Or is it on top of her bag which is on top of the table? I don’t know, but it’s rude, girl. Hide your phone, man. So annoying…

In here, the camera is on the bed, but why at her feet as she does her nails?

Definitely one of my favourite scenes – walking around New York with a camera at your face. Girl, you’re dangerous. You might cause an accident walking like that

There’a a party scene in the film and I highly recommend you watch it, even if you skip the rest of the movie. Take the phone of your face people!!

The problem with Ratter is that everyone who’s seen it recommended it to me, saying it’s much better than Unfriended, another horror of similar sub-genre. But it’s not! Unfriended was one of my favourite things when I saw it and comparing Ratter to it is a disgrace.